Installation guide

Chapter 1. System requirements

This chapter lists system requirements for successfully running virtualization with Red Hat Enterprise

Linux.

The requirements for virtualization vary depending on the type of hypervisor. The Kernel-based

Virtual Machine (KVM) and Xen hypervisors are provided with Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5. Both

support Full virtualization. The Xen hypervisor also supports Para-virtualization.

For information on installing the virtualization packages, read Chapter 6, Installing the virtualization

packages.

Min imu m syst em req u iremen t s

6GB free disk space.

2GB of RAM.

Reco mmen d ed syst em requ iremen ts

6GB plus the required disk space recommended by the guest operating system per guest. For

most operating systems more than 6GB of disk space is recommended.

One processor core or thread for each virtualized CPU and one for the hypervisor.

2GB of RAM plus additional RAM for guests.

Note

KVM can overcommit physical resources for guests. Overcommiting resources means the total

virtualized RAM and processor cores used by the guests can exceed the physical RAM and

processor cores on the host. For information on safely overcommitting resources with KVM,

see Section 33.4, “Overcommitting Resources” .

Xen p ara- virt u aliz at io n req u iremen t s

Para-virtualized guests require a Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 installation tree available over the

network using the NFS, FTP or HTTP protocols.

Xen f u ll virt u aliz at io n req u iremen t s

Full virtualization with the Xen Hypervisor requires:

an Intel processor with the Intel VT extensions, or

an AMD processor with the AMD -V extensions, or

an Intel Itanium processor.

See Section 33.6, “ Verifying virtualization extensions” to determine if your processor has the

virtualization extensions.

Red Hat En t erp rise Lin ux 5 Virt ualizat ion Guid e